Red Hat CEO: My Employees And I Cuss At Each Otherhttp://www.businessinsider.com/red-hat-ceo-cussing-at-employees-2013-9/comments
en-usWed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500Tue, 26 Sep 2017 16:28:06 -0400Julie Borthttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/524dce326bb3f7673f8b4568Lee GrahamThu, 03 Oct 2013 16:06:10 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/524dce326bb3f7673f8b4568
Being a communications major I would classify this is a case of "sensational journalism" meaning this was taken way out of context!
I've been at Red Hat for 19 months and I can tell we don't get along all the time, we get upset, we get in passionate debates, we curse, but we don't cross the line of mutual respect. We don't tear each other down. That's not the Red Hat way of doing thing.
At the end of the day we all have a common goal... deliver products and services that meets customer needs.
I have yet to see anything as described in this post.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5231df3f6bb3f74b600768b1Máirín DuffyThu, 12 Sep 2013 11:35:27 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5231df3f6bb3f74b600768b1
I have to say this article paints a picture of Red Hat that simply doesn't reflect reality.
There must be quotes here taken out-of-context. I believe the point Jim was trying to make - that he has made many times in interviews over the years - is that Red Hat is a meritocracy, and good ideas are king. Regardless of your role/level in the company, if you have a good idea, you are listened to. I am only an end leaf node in the company's organizational hierarchy in engineering and I do report several levels deep, but I have conversations with various C-level Red Hat executives and my ideas are always respectfully considered and even occasionally sought out. Jim himself ued an email suggestion from me to modify our corporate mission / vision statements to be more inclusive.
This article takes the opposite side of the point that good ideas are king, and focuses instead on what happens to bad ideas, illustrating how bad ideas are criticized and it even suggests that people themselves are criticized (but as a current Red Hat employee I can say the latter is rarely the case or tolerated, even in engineering.) There is a big difference between passion for what you do and rudeness and vulgarity, and Red Hat is about the former, not the latter. The kind of heated conversations Jim is referring to are about passion for what we do - having passionate employees means a level of care and respect for our products that hopefully shows through in their quality. We are open and honest about what we think - if you propose a bad idea, you will hear about it... Red Hatters don't slog through projects they believe are misguided. "Yes" men and women are not the norm. While in illustrating the ways in which a particular *idea* is a bad one, colorful language might be used, vulgarity is not a prerequisite and serious ad hominem attacks are not tolerated.
I hope in the future your publication would be willing to write an article that deals more directly with Jim's point that within a hierarchical organization, Red Hat is actually pretty flat in that any employee is not only welcome but encouraged to take their great ideas directly to the top and that those ideas do actually get acted on.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/522e06886bb3f7530c8e5eaakrypticMon, 09 Sep 2013 13:34:00 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/522e06886bb3f7530c8e5eaa
Lack of civility creates a hostile environment where only a subset of people can thrive.